Bucket elevators are conveying mechanisms typically having a continuous belt with a plurality of buckets attached thereto used to move flowable solid materials (e.g., grains, feeds, fertilizers, seeds, food products, chemicals, sand, salt, gravel) vertically upward from a lower elevation to a higher elevation. In use, a suitable drive mechanism (e.g., an electric motor) is used to drive the continuous belt and thus the buckets around a lower pulley (or foot pulley) and an upper pulley (or head pulley) that is spaced upward from the lower pulley. A supply of flowable solid material is fed to the bucket elevator generally adjacent the lower pulley where it is scooped up by the moving buckets as they pass through the supply of material. The material is then carried upward usually vertical but sometimes at an incline in the bucket to the upper pulley. As the bucket passes over the upper pulley, the material is discharged from the bucket to a discharge chute. The material is thrown from the bucket by centrifugal force as the bucket passes over the upper pulley.
As one can readily appreciate, the total potential capacity of the bucket elevator can be increased by attaching more buckets and/or buckets with more capacity to the continuous belt. Accordingly, there is an ongoing desire for a bucket for a bucket elevator that has an increased capacity and can be spaced relatively close on the continuous belt.